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New podcast features the Family Tree Scandinavian Genealogy Guide.

Meet the “Sloopers”

How the first large group of Norwegian immigrants came. Much as in other countries, religious freedom sparked the first major wave of Scandinavian immigration to America after the Revolution—although economic opportunity and hardship back home soon became more important factors.

The Rise and Fall of New Sweden

Swedes arrived in America much earlier than you might think. Jealous of the Dutch colonial outposts in America, the Swedish government set out to establish its own New Sweden. It hired Peter Minuit, who had led the founding of New Netherland for the Dutch before being dismissed in an internal dispute, and set up the Swedish West India Company. In March 1638, two ships under Minuit’s command, the Kalmar Nyckeland Fogel Grip, arrived at the site of today’s Wilmington, Delaware, with 50 colonists. They named the settlement Fort Christina, after the young Swedish queen, and Reverend Reorus Porkillus established the first Lutheran congregation in America there.